What's the best way to show an email address on a page and hide it from spammers?

On my current site I "document.write" a string of characters which renders as my email address (it's also a clickable mailto: link), hopefully this will hide it from search engines - or am I deluding myself?

While coding the Contact Us page for my revamped site, it occurred to me that the email address won't show if javascript is turned off in the browser, so I hit on the idea of having my email address as a graphic instead of "written" in the above fashion - I've arranged it so that if javascript is off the graphic will still show, except it's no longer clickable as a "mailto:" link.
Can anyone see any problems with this approach?

I noticed that sometimes when submitting something on a web site, I'm required to read a graphically presented character string and type it in for verification.
The distorted nature of these graphics make we wonder if it's to fool malicious bots which can do OCR, because if they can do OCR, my "button graphic" idea might not work as well as hoped.

I downloaded CC Form Builder and will try it out in the next few days, and hopefully with a form I won't need to display an email address.
BTW does Form Builder produce content which can be embedded in a page using CC Editor, or does it only produce stand-alone pages?

My opinion is that your email address needs to be user friendly so using images for email addresses is out of the question. There are various other approaches to preventing spam in email links and form mail such as obfuscating the address and using JavaScript tricks. I like to use CAPTCHA forms, myself.

Sounds like you might be coding something similar to the technique found here:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/emailriddler/

I've used this on several websites and it appears to be very effective. Don't know if it's foolproof, though - the fools continue to evolve and foil our plans...


Here's where I get a little radical. I build sites that are safe to visit and are meant to be entertaining. Therefore, they use technology that allows me to present entertaining content. If visitors to my sites are there for the entertainment value, they will miss out by disallowing javascript. I believe in adhering to web standards as defined by W3C, but I'm not going to cater to the absolute lowest common denominator by dumbing-down my site and using only textual or static content.


Form Builder's code can indeed be embedded into existing pages, using the HTML editor of your choice.

I've looked at the email spam issue for a while, I get sooo much at a couple of my addresses and almost none at some others. I've decided to opt for the Contact Us Form rather than pasting information on my site for contacting me. No Email, no Phone Number, and general vicinity information only. I may change this soon as I think it may be a deterent to some people that might want to know where you physically are located address wise. But I'm trying very very hard to outwit all those email spammers, phone calls from vendors and what not (which all take minutes as well as those that would abuse my number with text messages which I don't need at all), and junk mail from the post office. I just don't need all the garbage. I need a few other things on my site like Policies and Return Policies etc. which I know, but generic is the only thing I'm doing right now.

Thanks for your comments everyone.

I didn't follow The Joker's comment that using images is out of the question - I had a button with my address "stamped" on it, this was a link to the email client when pressed. If javascript is disabled in the browser, the button wouldn't work as a link but the address could still be read from it and entered manually.
But thanks for telling me about Captcha (I didn't know Form Builder supported this, I purchased it and now I know).

Anyway I've ditched the javascript & button images and used Form Builder with a Captcha box.
The form worked first time!!!!!!

Looking at my form I think it looks a little "busy" though.

looks cool zipper - maybe add the email address in text on the flash form where the bots cant see it so that those real people who really want to can still type it in their own email program

As long as it's clickable without making people type the address. User friendly.

Thanks Joker.
And thanks Pixie, it didn't occur to me that the bots can't see the flash form.

If I can just mention that your web site is not the only place to deal with potential spammers. If you have a mail box with your domain server than you can usually go in and make some decisions about what you want to let through and not to your mail box. I know I can decide on the level and type of mail that gets in using all kinds of criteria including language (good, bad and foreign) for instance. And if you don't have this option, check whether it is a service that you can get by paying just a small extra. I pay just €2 per annum to be able to have this spam and virus control on my incoming mail.

Thanks to Fe, somewhere, way back when, I seem to recall that she posted some code to build a php page for incoming mail. I now incorporate this quite often and assume that it makes my email address more difficult to pick up... in just the same way the cc form builder does I presume.
You can see an example of the php method here
http://www.vallejoviolinlessons.com/contact.html